Corr! I love that new make-up! Did you go to FACE in that new shopping mall? OOoooo, MWAHH! How is my little rodeo clown? Looking like the Bucking-est Bronco I ever saw! You must be giving Georgie the time of his life with that gorgeous body! He must feel like the luckiest diamond to ever be caught in a clam like you! I mean it, when I think of you two, I just think, God, like two peas in a pod (if the pod is a Tempurpedic, and the peas are gay with young love!) How have you been? I’ve missed you!

Well, now that it’s warmer, Donny finally goes outside to play basketball. He’s been hanging out in the backyard a lot with that beautiful Sanchez boy from down the street. He’s so shy, with that little voice and skinny body. If it weren’t for that mustache, I’d say he was about thirteen years old! But Donny just can’t stop hanging around him: going to movies, disappearing for a few hours “looking for bugs behind the garage.” It’s like Donny’s imagination has sprung back from all that Nintendo now that little Sanchez is around. I ask them every half hour or so: “Can I make you a sandwich? How bout a nice glass of orange juice?” And when they ignore me I just walk back in, take out my afternoon chardonnay and make them some sandwiches anyway, then ask: “Would you like some apple boats with that?” (I cut them up into little triangles with peanut butter sails). I’ve been trying to get them to go on an ice-cream run, but they never want to go with me. I know I’m an OLD HAG, but I still know how to turn a good party around with a Dairy Queen ice-cream cake. But Donny just takes a 20 from my wallet and sneaks off with his buddy. Haha!

Sometimes they come home covered in ice-cream, and I keep saying, “Now I have to deal with dirty Donny!” They laugh and laugh. By the time I get to wiping up that filthy Sanchez, they are on the floor giggling, hardly able to open their eyes! I tell you, I should have been a comedian or a poet, the way I can make those funny rhymes or whatever.

In fact, Horatio this month told me I was ready to start a “real reading career.” He said enough of this phony-boloney Nicholas Sparks stuff (beneath me, really). He said that since I had read the Da Vinci Code a few years back my mind was totally free, and I needed to start reading the Classics, so he gave me Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, which I had already heard of, but didn’t know if it was any good. I’m only a few pages in, but I can tell that Charles is just going to make it big like my Frankie (and someday my Donny!). Charles just seems like a nose-to-the-grindstone type of guy, so I know this book is going to be about him finding that good wife he deserves. It’s not easy! I know! But that’s what books should be about, Corr. The struggle to find that hard-to-get love. Frankie and I had a rough patch Junior Year of high school, but we stuck it out. If anything, this book seems to be telling me “keep on truckin’ Cheryl!” And I am.

What have you been up to?

Thank you for noticing my hair! That's why you're the best. Horatio's the only man who knows how to trim this bush on top of my head. I swear, I went in so frazzled it was like I'd been sleeping inside a Dutch Oven!

When I came home after an hour of Horatio's finger magic, I didn't think anyone had noticed the work he did. I think it looks wonderful, but Frankie just kissed me hello and didn't say a word. I almost slapped him upside the noggin! My little Donny boy though, he noticed. But I could tell he was too embarrassed to say anything because his little friends were over. They always look so red in the face when I come in the room, it's like they can hardly move their eyes, they're so focused on that TV! I don't know what to say, so I just make cookies and leave them to their Nintendo.

Anyway, Horatio is a riot! He is always giving me books so we have something to talk about the next time I come in (because once it got really awkward when he brought up his boyfriend and I couldn't just let it slide. I'm so curious about that lifestyle, not that I condone it necessarily. Anywhoo, you know). Last time he gave me The Notebook (what a sweetie-pie. And he understands so many of those intricate details of the relationships! I mean, the stuff he came up with! It's a shame he'll have to become a priest someday), but this week he gave me Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and let me tell you it is dark. I mean DARK. I'm not finished with it yet, but everyone in the book is dead already or talking about these tragedies, like this blue guy at a carnival. I'll give it to you when I'm done. Horatio promised a satisfying ending.

It's better than what they have Donny reading: that Catcher in the Rye business! Why are they always depressing kids with these books. I got to page 50 and was so offended I put it down! And you know how good I am about finishing novels. Really, I just can't see why anyone would be interested in silly sad people. If the kids need to read something sad in class, they should read Man's Search for Meaning. You know, the one about the Holocaust. Now that's a subject that our kids don't know enough about, and I think it's about time we assigned them more books about a tragedy like that: one that actually affects them.

By the way! Getting your carpet steamed is one of the worst days of the year! I feel for you. I'm always going around the house, picking up clothes and telling my husband and Donny to please help me sweep, but Donny's so snippy: "Why? It's the carpet cleaner's job." Sometimes, it's like they can't even hear me. It's like when the maids come to the house, and I have a very strict policy on cleaning up before they come, and both men of the house are like " why clean before the cleaners?" And I have to explain every time: "it's what I do!" You just can't get it through to them. You know?

You should see Horatio sometime! It would wonders!